‘Veronica Mars’ Film Will Address 10-Year Gap [Spoilers]

So a Veronica Mars film is in the pipeline after a successful Kickstarter campaign waged in the super-sleuth’s honor. Now that the good news has died down, everyone is wondering what the plot will be like, and whether the story will pick up where the show left off or fast-forward in time to reflect the real-life 10-year gap between series and film.

The Veronica Mars film went from Arrested Development-esque pipe dream to Arrested Development-esque reality in just under 24 hours last week. Series creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell shook hands and started a Kickstarter campaign to secure funding for the project, and Veronica Mars fans came out in force.

The asking price for a Veronica Mars film was a cool $2 million. Fans met that in under 24 hours. Now, with 21 days left to go, the campaign has 58,000 backers and nearly $4 million to play with.

Cool! So what’s Veronica Mars the movie going to be about? Will it pick up where the series left off, in presumably Veronica’s sophomore year at Hearst college? Or will they fast-forward in time to reflect the real-life 10-year gap?

Thomas shared what he could about the film in an interview with TV Line. Be warned, if you want a completely virginal experience with the Veronica Mars film, you should turn back now, as Thomas drops spoilers about who will be back and who won’t be, who Veronica’s new boyfriend is, and much, much more.

First off, the film will indeed pick up several years after the close of the series with a 10-year high school reunion. What has happened in the interim?

“She transferred away from Hearst college after that freshman year and went up to Stanford and finished her undergraduate degree,” Thomas says. “And then she went to Columbia Law School. She’s certainly been back to Neptune from time to time to see her dad and Mac and Wallace, but she hasn’t worked a PI case since the last one we all saw in the final episode of Season 3. She ruined her dad’s chance for re-election and she decided that that path had caused too much chaos in her life. And so she hasn’t worked a PI case in nine years. And when we meet her, she’s sort of like where Tom Cruise was in the beginning of The Firm. She’s between having graduated and taken the bar and she’s interviewing at various law firms in New York.”

Veronica won’t be single at the start of the movie, but Thomas didn’t give any further details about who she is dating, except that it’s not Logan, whom “she hasn’t seen in nine years.”

Sadly, Backup won’t be returning. “If you do the math, that’s a big dog to still be alive 13 years later,” said Thomas. “Most 100lb dogs, they get 7 or 8 years of life. It would strain credulity if the same Backup were still alive.”

Also, no more ghost visits from Amanda Seyfried’s Lilly. “I want to make the movie accessible for people who haven’t watched Veronica Mars before. All you need to know is that Veronica was a teenage private eye and she’s given it up.”

The movie is shooting for a PG-13 rating, and Veronica’s relationship with Keith will be a “big theme.” Also, though it might end up being a final send-off, Veronica will survive the events of the film.

“Veronica will survive the movie,” Thomas reassures. “I can’t promise anyone else does though. But there will be an opportunity for Veronica do to her thing again.”

A sequel? A series revival? “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t think of those things,” Thomas admits. “I am hopeful it is the birth of [much more] Veronica Mars.”